If you know the answer to that question, the Community Foundation of Greater Birmingham will write a big, fat check with your name on it. Thursday, the Community Foundation announced a $50,000 grand prize for Birmingham's "Next Big Thing" with its Prize2theFuture. The top 10 ideas will share $72,000 in prize money.

The goal is to reward the best idea that will transform a whole city block just east of Railroad Park "into something really, really cool," said Community Foundation President Kate Nielsen. That block is not so cool now: ground-level parking.

The real promise, and value, of the Prize2theFuture is that it is not just a reward for a great idea. The foundation intends to make the idea a reality.

Toward that end, it has raised more than $13 million in gifts and pledges -- Nielsen said 54 families and individuals each committed from $50,000 to $2 million -- to use as seed money for other investors on the winning project. The Community Catalyst Funds, as they are known, will be used for future idea contests as well, she said.

Why the city block next to the Railroad Park? The railroads through Birmingham are this city's "river," cleaving it in two. The Railroad Corridor that runs from Interstate 65 to Sloss Furnace is our city's river walk. The Railroad Park is the new crown jewel of the river walk, while the block next to it is a diamond in the rough just waiting for the right idea.

That's where you come in. The foundation wants an idea that is cool, complements the Railroad Park and corridor, is doable and sustainable, magnetic and contagious, and has broad appeal.

The Community Foundation, which has been a philanthropic mainstay in Birmingham for more than a half-century, deserves a hearty round of applause for the Prize2theFuture. So, too, do the generous Birmingham families and individuals who built the Community Catalyst Funds.

The Prize2theFuture represents the continuing evolution of the Community Foundation, which in its first 50 years as a public charity leveraged gifts and bequests to make grants to area nonprofits.

A few years back, as the foundation geared up for its 50th anniversary, it asked donors and nonprofits what they wanted over the next 50 years. The marching orders were clear: Take on big projects and make things happen.

Already, we've seen the Three Parks Initiative to make Birmingham one of the nation's greenest cities; the Yes We Can! Birmingham effort to improve city schools; the School Readiness Initiative to expand quality, voluntary prekindergarten programs locally and statewide; and Blueprint Birmingham, a strategic plan from the Birmingham Business Alliance that the Community Foundation helped develop and is working to put in place.

Now, we have the Community Foundation's Next Big Thing with its Prize2theFuture. Put on your thinking caps and let those great ideas flow.

For more information about the contest, go to www.prize2thefuture.org.